Eternity
by nigerutmea anima
Summary: Bellatrix experiences the afterlife; One-shot


**A/N Written for Challenge #73 on Bellatrix Lestrange: The Dark Lord's Most Faithful forum in response to PieceOfGum's prompt "Resurrection is impossible. However, you could always make a painting of your lost loved one..."**

A blinding green light seared itself permanently into Bellatrix's retinas before she fell, panting, to the floor. Defiantly rising to her feet, she raised her wand, a high pitched laugh growing in her throat. Preparing herself to cast the curse that would end that interfering blood-traitor once and for all, she inhaled and opened her eyes.

And then blinked her eyes again. And then once more.

Something was wrong. Some curse of the spell she had been hit with, she was sure. The blood-traitor was nowhere to be seen, but instead…white. In every direction, white. It was blinding in its own sort of way, and Bellatrix didn't like it. There was something distinctly unsettling about being surrounded by a bleached landscape, the first immediate consequence of which was that she couldn't see her opponent.

But she could feel that bitch just behind her. Snarling, Bellatrix whirled on her heel and sent a Killing Curse behind her, missing her own furling cape by half an inch. The jet of green continued on forever, a pinprick in the distance against a completely blank canvas. No!

Turning again and again, Bellatrix fired more and more jets of light, hoping for sheer luck.

Her desperate spell-work was an insane kind of beautiful. Her reflexes were without parallel, and it was easy for her single observer to see why she had been called Tom Riddle's Most Faithful. Riddle had brought him much work over the past two decades, though more so for his rival. He wondered idly how many of the floating phantoms continuing in almost unbroken procession above him for the last several weeks had been sent to their fate by this woman.

But he didn't really care. It was time for him to finish his job and get back to things. He was tired already of this macabre performance. And as a jet flew right through his eighteenth-century vest, which he rather prized, he decided that things had gone far enough.

His slow, ringing applause interrupted the one-sided battle as he stepped out of his own shadow into the uncomfortably reflective white.

Bellatrix froze and spun to face her new foe, wand threateningly outstretched, but he did not flinch.

"My dear Bellatrix, it is lovely to have you here at last!" he welcomed, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

"Who are you?" she asked sharply.

"You don't recognize me? And here I thought we were old friends."

"I don't have time for riddles!" Bellatrix snapped. "Where is the blood-traitor Molly Weasley?"

Suddenly, Bellatrix's wand spun out of her hand, cartwheeling further and further up until finally it burst into flames. Wand-ash rained down upon the pair, vaporizing before it landed upon the man's top hat, but becoming hopelessly tangled in the Dark witch's hair.

"Molly Weasley? I don't know the name."

"You don't seem to know much."

"I know many things, Bellatrix, much more than you, I'm afraid. You aren't even aware yet that you're dead."

Bellatrix opened her mouth to speak, and then closed it again. Then, a moment later, she tried again. "Impossible."

The man chuckled, as though expecting this reaction. "Not quite, I'm afraid. Unfortunately today is rather busy for me – your side is taking heavy losses – but before I go, I have one piece of advice for you. 'Visualize your life, and it just might return to you.'"

"You taunt me!" she accused.

"Enjoy eternity, Ms. Lestrange," the man said with a smile as he stepped backward out of existence.

A clang interrupted the stillness as Bellatrix stood alone against the unflinching white, and she turned slowly to see an object not ten feet away.

Curiously, she approached it, and her face was half an inch away before she finally recognized it. Her knife. It now seemed so familiar. Idly wondering what had become of the treacherous House Elf she last threw it at, Bellatrix picked it up, twirled in her fingers.

'Visualize your life, and it just might return to you.'

Her life….And suddenly, she understood.

With a feral smile, she drew the blade across her shoulder, feeling the sharp sting of the metal slice through her smooth skin. It was oddly invigorating. Adrenaline rushed into her system, and she could have laughed with giddiness.

But somehow, instinctively, she knew that the cut wouldn't be deep enough for what she had planned. Drawing in a shaky breath, she held the trembling knife before her for just a moment before plunging it toward her abdomen.

**OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO**

The Keeper of Hell wasn't thrown by much these days. He was older than the ages, for one, and he really _had_ seen it all. But 26,783,294 souls later, when his rounds took him to the prison of Bellatrix Lestrange, he was pleasantly surprised by the change in decorum. Even he could admit that the constant white was a bit bland, but dear Bellatrix had taken it upon herself to give the place a new feel.

His eyes adjusting to the blotchy red-on-white landscape, he approached the nearest red patch to find a crudely rendered picture – it looked like a child's finger-painting, really – of a man who appeared very misshapen indeed. But as he moved through the canvas, he found that the pictures got better, though the man was still missing a nose, and his face really did look more snake than human. And what was that medium? Blood? Merlin, she _was_ mad. Simply delightful.

He never got a change to congratulate her though, as she didn't seem to notice him at all. Such dedication to her art. Although he didn't suppose that that slightly rabid look was typical, but he was ever so glad to finally make an artistic addition to the department. Her arms and legs had been mangled beyond repair by the unforgiving blade, and even her face had not been spared. Deep slash marks crisscrossed her cheek bones and ran like railroad tracks across her forehead. He watched her plunge the dagger again into her stomach with a sharp cry and dab gingerly at the wound. Truly a spectacular sight.

Sighing inwardly at the next prison, probably inhabited by another raving Pureblood, he stepped back onto the portal and closed his eyes, savoring the last delicious images of her eternity.


End file.
